The present invention relates to apparatus for manufacturing electrical phase insulators for dynamoelectric machines and more specifically to take-up apparatus for accumulating in reel form a continuous belt of interconnected phase insulators. In fabricating phase insulators for dynamoelectric machines of the type shown in the aforementioned application, Ser. No. 8,603, utilizing automated fabrication equipment as shown in the aforementioned application, Ser. No. 051,029, a continuous belt of phase insulators is provided which may be cut up into separate phase insulators or else accumulated on a take-up reel for subsequent use on an automatic phase insulation insertion machine. Phase insulators and their method of use in providing insulation between end turns of adjacent field windings in a dynamoelectric machine are well known. The details of representative phase insulators and the manner in which they can be inserted using automated equipment is shown in co-pending application, Ser. No. 918,055, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,571, filed June 22, 1978, jointly in the names of Sammy L. Miller and Alan L. Kindig, and entitled "Methods and Apparatus for Inserting Winding End Turn Phase Insulation." When utilizing fabricated phase insulators with automated insertion machinery, it is convenient and desirable to provide the phase insulators in the form of a continuous belt of longitudinally interconnected phase insulators. The automated insertion machinery operates, in part, to unreel the belt of phase insulators and to sever them into separate phase insulators for insertion in the dynamoelectric machines.
The phase insulator belt to which the present invention is adapted comprises a pair of spaced apart, parallel planer insulator strips cross-connected by, for example, filamentary cross-connector strips thus forming a series of rectangular windows framed by the planer insulator strips and by adjacent cross-connector strips. It will be appreciated that the length of the cross-connector strips and, consequently, the width of the phase insulator belt is determined by the lamination stack height of the dynamoelectric machine for which the phase insulators are intended. Therefore, the phase insulator fabrication equipment, the take-up reel and the phase insulator insertion machine must be adapted to accommodate a variety of different phase insulator belt widths.
When a take-up reel is used to accumulate the belt of phase insulator windings for subsequent use in automated insulation insertion machines, it is important that the belt be properly wound on the machine with good alignment so that the insertion machine will not become jammed. The problem of providing good alignment of the belt as it is scrolled onto the take-up reel is aggravated somewhat when phase insulators using fused, filamentary cross-connector strips are employed since the belt, by necessity, is relatively loosely wound on the take-up reel. It is important that proper tensioning of the belt as it is wound onto the reel is employed to assure that one of the planer strips does not, in effect, move ahead of the other related planer strips which would result in skewing of the phase insulator on the take-up reel. Moreover, due to the loosely wound nature of the belt on the reel suitable tensioning must be employed to avoid internal skewing of the belt as the reel fills up. This again results from the fact that it is not possible to tightly pack the belt on the reel.
It is known in the prior art wherein take-up reels are used to accumulate lengths of processed sheet material to allow the material to form a loop of variable size, which is periodically taken up on the reel, by, for example, a start and stop drive mechanism. It is also known to provide a guide roll in the trough of the loop, for example, which is positioned at the end of a lever arm with the other end of the arm operating a position sensing and control mechanism to start and stop the take-up reel as the loop of material grows and contracts between maximum and minimum extended positions. This lever arm may sometimes be counterweighted to provide a certain degree of tensioning of the material to aid in the winding of the material on the take-up reel.
Such arrangements have not been found to be satisfactory for the purposes of operating take-up apparatus for the belt of phase insulators, such as fabricated by the equipment of the aforementioned application, Ser. No. 051,029.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide novel take-up apparatus for a continuous belt of fabricated phase insulators.
It is a more specific object of the invention to provide take-up apparatus of particularly beneficial use with fabricating equipment of the type disclosed in the aforementioned Burns and Wesseldyk application Ser. No. 051,029. More specifically, an object of the present invention is to provide novel take-up apparatus for equipment adapted to fabricate phase insulators, particularly of the type having cross-connector strips of filamentary material in which the phase insulators are in the form of a continuous belt of successive interconnected phase insulators; and wherein the belt is wound on the take-up apparatus with proper alignment such that the wound belt of phase insulators is suitable for subsequent use in an automated phase insulator insertion machine.